Tweed-Byron police have released the bodies of Greg Hutchings and his four-year-old daughter Eeva Dorendahl for burial, although they have yet to decide how they died.
The bodies of the pair were found in bushland behind sand dunes at Pottsville on January 28, 17 days after they were reported missing after failing to keep an appointment to return Eeva to her mother, Michelle Dorendahl.
Owing to the time that had elapsed the bodies were too decomposed for a normal autopsy to establish the cause of death and police will have to rely on alternative forensic information to come to a conclusion.
Tweed-Byron police superintendent Stuart Wilkins said the bodies had been cleared for release to the families and he expected funerals to be held ‘in the near future’, despite a cause of death not having been clearly established.
News Limited reported yesterday that Greg Hutchings’s mother, Diana, believed the bodies were being released too soon.
Ms Hutchings said she didn’t believe her son had killed his daughter and that an as-yet-unidentified third person may have killed them both.
‘My concern is that the bodies are being released before they’ve done enough testing,’ she told a News Limited reporter.
She added that Mr Hutchings had said in an affidavit to the Family Court he that had feared for his safety.
‘I haven’t been taken seriously by the police since I reported Greg missing with concerns for his safety,’ she said.
‘I’ve been threatened with arrest and police haven’t corrected false statements they made about Greg.’
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